


Girlish Giggle

by failuretoland



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24482851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/failuretoland/pseuds/failuretoland
Summary: Sirius could always tell when Remus had an enjoyable evening, and he had a bad habit of announcing it to anyone who would listen.
Relationships: Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Comments: 8
Kudos: 68





	Girlish Giggle

**Author's Note:**

> Just my fun little take on how Sirius found out about his best friend and his cousin.

That was unmistakably a giggle he heard.

Now Sirius was accustomed to hearing all sorts of noises in this old, grimy, pest-ridden house. He’s had to battle doxies, boggarts, Puffskeins, and probably other creatures lurking in the shadows. Everything in the house seemed cursed to kill just about anything that breathes: robes that strangle someone who’d get too close to the wardrobe, the grandfather clock that hurls heavy bolts to whomever passed by, that ugly troll leg umbrella stand that everyone seemed to trip over (okay, maybe just _one_ person), and lest he forget, his mother’s wonderfully enchanting painting.

In fact, it was one of those damn doxies that woke him up in the first place. A whole gaggle of doxies started banging on the wall of the room adjacent to his. That room was typically occupied by Tonks when she decides to spend the night; but since it was currently empty, those annoying biting creatures decided to wreak havoc there. He eventually managed to trap most of them in a cage after a while, and just decided against going back to sleep. With a heavy sigh, he headed downstairs for breakfast and that’s when he heard it.

12 Grimmauld Place is a house that lives and breathes on its own, so errant noises are not out of the ordinary.

But a giggle — a distinctly female one at that — is definitely something he hasn’t heard before, especially since it was coming from his best friend’s room. As delicate and gentle Remus sometimes appears, Sirius was completely certain that his friend did _not_ giggle like that. _Looks like Remus was out on the pull last night_ , he thought with a mischievous grin. 

That just made his morning, and he hadn’t even had breakfast yet.

Nothing cheers Sirius up more than being able to take the mickey out of his friends. If Remus thought he’d get out of this scot-free just because they were supposedly adults now, he was definitely wrong. Sirius had thirteen years to make up for.

Not even his mother’s screaming ruined his mood as he made his way to the kitchen for breakfast.

* * *

By the time Remus arrived in the kitchen, only Sirius, Molly and Arthur were present. On some days when their Order meetings ran too late into the night, the Weasleys often opt to retreat into one of the empty rooms upstairs instead of returning to The Burrow. Sirius always welcomed the company since it was mostly he and Remus who occupied the house. Besides, Molly’s presence always came with food which Sirius would never decline.

“Good morning, dear!” greeted Molly kindly, immediately handing him a mug of tea and a plate loaded with food.

“Thank you, Molly,” Remus replied gratefully, and he took a seat across Sirius.

“Mornin’, Moony!” said Sirius, a little bit more cheerfully than he usually does.

Remus narrowed his eyes at the man before him, looking suddenly wary. “You’re oddly chipper this morning.”

“Aren’t I always?” scoffed Sirius.

“Honestly? No.”

“I take offense to that.”

“You were brooding the for most of last week when we ran out of Firewhiskey.”

“Okay fine,” conceded Sirius. “But aren’t you glad that I’m in better spirits?”

“I suppose so,” Remus agreed. “What’s gotten you in such a good mood anyway?”

“Can’t a bloke just be happy for no reason?” said Sirius, but Remus raised an eyebrow questioningly as the latter sipped his cup of tea.

“I’ve known you since we were eleven. I can tell the difference between ‘genuinely-happy-Sirius’ and ‘I’m-hiding-something-so-I’ll-pretend-to-be-happy-Sirius’ “.

“You wound me, Moony,” Sirius said, mockingly clutching his heart as though he truly was wounded, to which Remus raised his brow again in response. Sirius then raised his hands in defeat and added, “Okay fine fine. You know me too well.”

“So… out with it,” encouraged Remus. “What are you itching to tell me?”

“Actually, mate, shouldn’t you be the one to tell me something?” Sirius said with a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Me? What would I have to share with you that you don’t already know?” Truth be told, if Sirius hadn’t heard what he did upstairs, he would have bought Remus’ convincing innocent act. Luckily for his best friend (or unluckily, depends on how you look at it), Sirius wasn’t going to let Remus off the hook that easily.

“Is that so? So that was your girlish giggle I heard this in your bedroom this morning?”

Remus, who had been taking another sip of his tee, choked a little and coughed at the question. To add fuel to the fire, he had also turned a nice shade of pink which signaled to Sirius that the right question had been asked. Remus was always ridiculously easy to tease, and Sirius was reveling in it.

“Remus, dear,” called out Molly from the other end of the table. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Molly,” Remus choked out.

“More than fine, I’d say!” interjected Sirius. “He was just telling me about his wonderful evening.” It seemed like Sirius piqued the interests of both Molly and Arthur now, and this just made Remus turn into a deeper shade of pink. Sirius prodded further, “So who is she?”

“She?” asked Molly, now genuinely interested. It was no secret that Molly was very fond of Remus and she was of the firm belief that he should find a nice girl to be with. It was only Remus who received this kind of treatment from the Weasley matriarch presumably because he was the only one close to being an eligible bachelor. Sirius would have counted as one, had he not been viewed as an ex-convict by the Wizarding community. Besides, Remus could not bear to be dismissive of Molly and he just accepts her doting.

“There is no she,” Remus adamantly replied.

“Are you sure? It definitely sounded like there was a she in your room when I walked by,” Sirius triumphantly said.

“Oh, you have a girlfriend, Remus?” asked Molly brightly.

“I don’t—” started Remus.

“But it sounds like you do, Moony,” interrupted Sirius.

“Padfoot—"

“Is she still upstairs, then?”

“No, there’s—”

“Or did you sneak her out before breakfast?”

“I—”

“Speaking of sneaking, did you bring her in after the Order meeting?”

“Please stop—”

“When can we meet her?”

“SIRIUS!”

“Yes?” said Sirius with fake innocence. At this point, Arthur was enraptured by the conversation, looking to and fro the two younger men as though it were a Muggle tennis match. Molly, who was equally interested earlier, now looked had a look of either guilt or pity directed at Remus (or both).

“Stop it, will you?” answered Remus exasperatedly. “There is no she.”

Sirius was about to start another wave of teasing, when Molly cut him off. “Well, if ever you do have a girlfriend, I’m pretty sure she’s lovely. We’d be glad to meet her someday.” That earned a slight grimace from Remus and a triumphant grin from Sirius. Clearly, Molly hadn’t bought his innocent act either.

“Padfoot please, just let it go,” Remus almost begged. “You must have heard a group of Cornish pixies lurking about.”

Sirius huffed in response. What he heard was definitely _not_ a Cornish pixie. He’d drop the subject for now, but Remus wasn’t escaping that easily. One way or another, he’d get his friend to admit it.

At that moment, the kitchen door swung open to reveal an unexpected guest. It was Tonks, who chose to don a pixie cut hairstyle in vibrant purple. Just like Molly and Arthur, she would sometimes spend the night in Grimmauld Place. It wasn’t out of the ordinary on most days, but Sirius distinctly remembered Tonks bidding everyone farewell after the meeting. She must have popped back in after everyone was asleep, thought Sirius.

“Wotcher!” she greeted everyone.

“Oh hey, Tonks,” Sirius greeted in return. “I didn’t know you spent the night. I thought you’d left after the meeting?”

“Ah,” Tonks faltered a little. “I, um… I came back for my cloak. And um… I figured I just sleep here instead of going back to my flat.”

Sirius just nodded in acceptance and continued picking at his food. Instead of continuously haranguing Remus over breakfast, he tried coming up with an elaborate scheme to get the truth out of him. A whole range of ideas flitted through his mind: he had to rule out veritaserum since his potion brewing skills were abysmal; he could also try just wrestling him into submission like they were teenagers again; or he could threaten to poison his food with the doxy eggs his found this morning. _Might as well put all this to somewhat of a good use,_ he thought to himself.

As he tried to come up with a plan using the doxy eggs that did not involve actually poisoning his best friend, a thought suddenly occurred to him…

“Hold on,” Sirius suddenly piped up, breaking the conversation going on between Arthur and Molly, and Remus and Tonks. Tonks had taken a seat in front of him and immediately beside Remus. Both of them looked at him questioningly, but Remus looked more alarmed than anything else. “Your room was empty, Tonks.” Tonks immediately paled and Remus looked even more frantic.

“N—no, it wasn’t,” said Tonks shakily.

“Yeah, it was” insisted Sirius. “Your room is beside mine, and I had to clear it out of doxies before breakfast.”

“Oh— er… I must have entered another room, then!” Tonks replied with a little nervous laugh. “Must have been too tired to notice.”

Sirius was going to question her a bit further, but he noticed a fleeting glance shared between an extremely red-faced Remus, who obviously hadn’t recovered from his blushing earlier, and Tonks, whose hands were shaking as she took her tea. Remus cleared this throat and was decidedly looking at his plate of eggs as though it were the most interesting thing in the world.

Then it clicked.

And Sirius gasped so loudly that a startled Arthur dropped his fork.

“You?” exhaled Sirius, directing his gaze at Tonks, and then to his best friend. “And you?”

At this point, Remus just gave up all pretenses and dropped his head to the table with a groan. Tonks, who wasn’t entirely sure how exactly the conversation reached that point, smiled sheepishly at her cousin. The combined sight of their reactions resulted in a reaction that surprised everyone in the room: Sirius _cackled._

“My best friend— and my cousin— oh Merlin—” gasped Sirius in between laughter.

Arthur, who had barely caught on to what the conversation was about in the first place, turned to his wife and asked, “Is he saying what I think he’s saying?”

Molly, on the other hand, seemed absolutely delighted at the revelation. She went to hug the two people in question and congratulated them. “Oh, this is wonderful news! The two of you would be lovely together!”

Throughout this exchange, Sirius was laughing nonstop. For someone who just discovered a supposedly secret relationship between his mate and his younger cousin, he was surprisingly jovial about it. Remus just kept his head on the table and progressed to lightly banging his forehead against the wood. Tonks also gave up trying to put a front and was now nonchalantly finishing her breakfast. Occasionally, she’d give a reassuring pat on Remus’ head, but the latter was keen on making a dent on the table with his head apparently.

Sirius calmed down a little bit, only enough to say, “Imagine a bunch of fluorescently colored wolf cubs running about!”

Remus groaned again and that sent Sirius into another peal of laughter. Tonks also giggled, and the sound was more than enough confirmation that Sirius had been right.


End file.
